Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It’s a well known phenomena by now that if you want to level up very quickly in Elden Ring, the best place to do so is a cliff’s edge by Mohgwyn Palace. Nearby to this now-famous site of grace camps a merry band of blood-cursed Albinaurics, as well as a stupid gross bird you can trick into killing itself over and over again. I do not give a single solitary biscuit about that leperous avian, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste my new-found position of prominence on this glorious website by not moralising at you heartless rune-hoarders about the unconscionable violence you keep inflicting on my bulbous, shiny frog sons. With Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree out soon, the amount of violence the community is collectively inflicting is breaking my tiny heart.

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It’s been almost a decade since Rebel Galaxy ably picked up the sci-fi trading and exploration mantle handed down by Freelancer, but it looks like a successor to the serene galaxy-venturing vibes of both is finally upon us. Star Trucker is exactly what it sounds like, transplanting the chill A-to-Z courier journeys of Euro Truck Simulator to the interplanetary, uh, roads of space. It’s out this September, and it looks wonderful.

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For me, sandbox games are never better when there’s an inherent chaos about to erupt at any given second. In a literal sandbox that might be anything from a kid burying a freshly-laid turd like a mischievous cat ready to be stepped on by an unsuspecting trespasser, gathering handfuls of grit to lob in a another kids’ eyes or swallowing a bunch of sand (hopefully turd-free) in pursuit of alchemising diamonds in their stomach. There don’t seem to be turds of any kind in upcoming sandbox RPG Streets of Fortuna, but that’s about the only thing that this ambitious “megasim” appears to be missing in its sprawling go-anywhere, do-anything open world.

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It’s been five years since Anno 1800, but we’ve finally seen what’s next for Ubisoft’s history-hopping city-building series. Anno 117: Pax Romana will be the earliest period for the franchise yet, travelling back to the time of a peaceful Ancient Rome. After the biggest gap between Anno games yet, we at least won’t have to wait too long for the newly revealed entry: it’s out next year.

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How do you like your coffee? For those who answer: “served by a barista with ten arms wearing a mask adorned with intense scarlet lipstick”, you are in luck. The multi-limbed coffee shop owner of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is, indeed, a reassuring sight, since they are the ones who sell the player fashionable jackets and trousers to wear while you axe enemy heads to bloody fragments. In this soon-to-sally-forth soulslike from the makers of Ashen, the creature design is a highlight. Whether it’s a good souls ’em up remains to be seen. I’ve only played a couple of hours in the Steam Next Fest demo. But I want to make clear that, among the reservations I’ve collected on my murder jaunt, nothing will diminish the espresso-pumping hand-haver of the game’s first café.

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I Am Your Beast is a tactical, smack-tical, I hope this tree branch doesn’t crack-tical while I’m hopping off it to land on this dude’s back-tical FPS. It’s from Strange Scaffold, of El Paso, Elsewhere and Booked For The Week fame. It is a euphoric splurge of murderous game verbiage that has you chaining together thrown knives and solar plexus punches, headshots and tree-fu. Lob an empty pistol at your screen, and then replace it, because you’ll need it to watch the trailer below.

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One of my absolute most favouritest Steam Deck cases, besides the one you get for free with the Steam Deck OLED, is the Dbrand Project Killswitch. It’s not so much a carrying vessel as a hardened second skin, providing protection without all the bag-hogging bulk of a traditional case – while throwing in handy bonuses like a clip-on kickstand and grippy thumbstick covers. For owners of the Asus ROG Ally, the recent launch of a Project Killswitch for their own handheld PC should therefore represent glad tidings with extra gladness, even if it won’t also fit the upcoming ROG Ally X.

Thank the new device’s bigger battery, wider SSD and reworked connection layout for that particular lack of forwards compatibility, as the ROG Ally X’s thicker dimensions will make it just slightly too beefy to slip into the Killswitch’s skintight silicone. A shame, but at least it makes a quality addition to the original Ally right this second. I’ve been manhandling one for a week now, and it’s just as practical and protective as the Steam Deck version.

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Chef RPG is Stardew Valley but for restaurants instead of farms, the ‘plate’ side of the hypothetical ‘farm to plate’ bundle that Steam may one day sell. Even the set-up is similar to the farming game. You rock up all chef-like off the train, and you’re soon greeted by your guide Hazel, yet another Boba-clutching robot. I might be misremembering Stardew. Fry yourself off a nice chunk of trai-loumi below.

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“Deus Ex but tiny and hilarious” is how I pitch the first Streets of Rogue to people in elevators. Then I kick the elevator control panel to pieces, climb out the hatch, and cut the cord with a buzzsaw I smuggled in earlier. “It’s also total chaos!” I yell, as the elevator plummets. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Streets of Rogue 2 is looking similarly chaotic. But one thing has been brought to order: its release date. It’s coming to early access on August 14th, while a new trailer (below) shows horse riding, flame throwing, and speed boating. My favourite moment is when a man pumps magic gas into a room full of people doing zumba, and it turns them all into giants, and they freak out and start smashing the walls in a panic.

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The god of video games news is vengeful, for this weekend He has sent forth a flood of game announcements to wipe out any remaining game journalists from this earth. Come at me, God! What have you got? Ah. It’s Ale Abbey, a management game about brewing beer in a monastery of medieval monks, and between making craft ales the priests get tipsy on their own supply. You can’t fool me, god of game reveals, this one has been openly in the works on GameJolt for 2 years. But, yes, I suppose now that the developer is teaming up with the Northgard creators as a publisher, the people must know.

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